SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS – Spring 2019, Issue Two

DIVISION CHAIR:  William Cabin, CHAIR: (2017-2019), Assistant Professor, 
Social Work, College of Public Health, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. 
Email: tuf34901@temple.edu  AND wcabin@umich.edu  



Inside this issue:

Note from the Chair 
Student Paper Competition Winner
Book Review Participation
Book Review
New Division Chair 
Newsletter Contributions Invited



NOTE FROM THE CHAIR:

Hi. I hope you all are well.  The Annual meeting in NYC is fast-approaching. Hope to see you all there. Ethan Evans will take over as chair. Ethan is full of energy and wants to enhance the Division. I hope you all will join him. LOOKING AHEAD TO 2020.Check the program theme and email new chair Ethan Evans of sessions you’d like our Division to sponsor. It’s never too early.



STUDENT PAPER COMPETITION WINNER
Zita Dixon was the winner is a very close contest. Zita is a doctoral candidate at Brandeis University. Please check out this award on the SSSP site and think of people to encourage to submit  for 2020.

Book Review Participation:
If you want to do a book review for this newsletter, please contact our book review editor: Ethan Evans at ethan.evans@csus.edu 



BOOK REVIEW
The New Communism: The science, the strategy, the leadership for an actual revolution, and
a radically new society on the road to real emancipation
Bob Avakian. 2016. Insight Press.
Book review team:
Ethan J. Evans, PhD, MSW, is assistant professor, Division of Social Work, California State
University, Sacramento. e-mail: ethan.evans@csus.edu.
Michael O. Johnston, PhD, is assistant professor, Sociology, William Penn University. e-mail:
johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu.
Overview
In the words of Bob Avakian, this book “covers a lot of ground, speaking to fundamentals of the
communist revolution, and what should guide us to bring about an actual revolution” (p.7). Its
chapters outline: a method and approach with Communism as a science, a description of
emancipation, a strategic approach to an actual revolution, and a treatise on the importance of
leadership. The text is extracted from a presentation given by Avakian at a conference in the
summer of 2015. The reader is transposed to audience, all the while encouraged to take up
intellectual struggle with classic Marxian concepts, such as dialectical materialism, and
alienation, and to engage with their practical implications.
Contribution
The author argues for a retaking of communism from an intellectual and popular drift that has
“taken the heart out of” and “reduced” it into “a feeble approach to tinkering around the edges of
things…even in the name of communism, keeping things within the confines of the capitalist
system, its relations, its ways of thinking” (p.79). The new synthesis offered by Avakian, is a
double-down on two things: 1) a scientific approach—a Marxist materialism, or in other words
an assessment of the world as it is, not as one would like it to be, and 2) a dialectic
orientation—an evidence-based assessment of the contradictions of productive and thus social
relations. Avakian asserts, that the fact that there can be an entirely and radically different world,
a communist world without exploitation and oppression, is a fact that is scientifically determined
by examining the actual dynamics of human society throughout history [what Avakian calls in
other passages “defining contradictions” (p. 92) or the “5-stops” (p. 248-251)]. He describes the
new synthesis as a “rejecting, casting off or recasting in a more correct light some of the things
from earlier times in the development of communism [since Marx up through Mao] that were not
thoroughly scientific. The synthesis seems summarized in these two precepts:
1) Humanity, the masses of oppressed humanity, and ultimately humanity as a
whole, really does need revolution and communism, and that
2) the new synthesis of communism, in terms of method and approach to
understanding and transforming human society, and the application of this method
and approach to crucial contradictions and problems of revolution, represents a
decisive qualitative leap in the development of the science of communism (pgs. 89-
90).
Together they frame Avakian’s call to attention that “the basis for revolution resides in the
defining contradictions of this system, which cannot be resolved under this system” (p. 92).

Strengths
This work actively grapples with the Marxist critique of capitalism at a time when great sums of
capitol have been amassed among very few people, at a time when social and political
institutions are strained, and at a time when competing calls for reform, perhaps fundamental
reform are gaining popular attention. Avakian offers a large body of work seeking to advance
both the intellectual and practical cause of communist theory and revolution. This book takes
seriously the long history and depth of analysis that has come before it to address questions
concerning materialism and idealism, epistemology and morality, and revolution and reform.
Weaknesses
Given that the piece was adapted from a spoken presentation and the overt advocacy agenda of
its author, little coverage is given to other materials in the field. The work is largely self-
referential, and readers are often admonished to consult other books, pamphlets or speeches by
the author. This approach obscures details and clarity. In many passages, the reader finds
referential statements where the referent is absent. For instance, the new synthesis of
communism is said to build on “essential parts” (p. 82) and then described on page 83 as being
developed in “many key areas.” It is quite challenging to identify the specifics to which these
and many other such general statements refer.
Summary
As Avakian, himself acknowledges, “we don’t or shouldn’t proceed from ‘the way the world is,’
in a static sense.” We are living in tumultuous times and Avakian offers a perspective as to what
is happening now, how society got here, and what is necessary to make fundamental change. The
book offers a presentation of critical theory and polemic in political economy and praxis, that
could easily be required reading for master-level students in social theory, political economy,
and social welfare courses. Additional works by Avakian, mostly available on the website
www.revcom.us could be used as introductory material for the bachelor-level.


New Division Chair:

Congrats to Dr. Ethan Evans. He'll take office at the 2019 Annual Meeting. Please communicate with him at ethan.evans@csus.edu 



Newsletter Contributions Invited
We encourage members to submit news such as publications, new appointments, 
and other professional accomplishments for inclusion in a future newsletter. 
Suggestions and inquiries about less conventional content are also welcome—
consider editorials, book reviews, teaching notes, department/program 
profiles, calls for contributions to journals and edited books, obituaries… 
Please direct such inquires to the current Division Chair, Bill Cabin at: 
wcabin@umich.edu or to incoming chair Ethan Evans at ethan.evans@csus.edu 











1